Changes in motor skills as children go

through infancy, childhood and

adolescence
INTRODUCTION
• Physical development
refers to biological changes that
children undergo as they age
• Reflexes
unlearned, organized involuntary
responses that occur automatically,
in the presence of certain stimuli
• Motor skills
skills that require an organism to
utilize their skeletal muscles
effectively in a goal directed
manner
 Infancy
(0-24 months)
 Infancy (0-24 months)
• The first two weeks of life are termed the
neonatal period and mark the transition from
the womb to independent life.

• Postmature - Infants who arrive 2 or more

weeks after their due date

• Premature-Infants who arrive before their

due date
 Full -term
Premature
 Infancy (0-24 months)
• Initially, babies' movements are simply the
uncontrolled, reflexive movements they are
born with.
Reflex Stimulus/Action

Head turning. allows a baby to turn his head if something such as a

blanket or pillow is blocking his airflow.

Sucking In response to inserting a finger or nipple into its

mouth, the infant begins rhythmically sucking.

In response to stroking its cheek, the infant turns its

Rooting
head toward the touch and attempts to suck.
Infancy (0-24 months)
• Most babies weigh between
5 1/2 and 10 pounds, and are
between 18 and 22 inches
long. Male babies are
generally slightly heavier
and longer than female
babies.

• Their hearing is fairly good

and they react differently
to different odors and
tastes. (Santrock,1995)
 Infancy (0-24 months)
• Can see fairly well up to about 12
inches from their eyes, but the world
farther away is probably a blur to
them. (Salapatek, 1977)

• It was previously believed that the

skin sense of neonates were poorly
developed, but it is now clear that
they are quite sensitive to touch.
(Santrock, 1995)

• At birth, the neonate's brain weighs

only 25 percent of that of an adult
brain. By the end of the second year,
the brain weighs about 80 percent; by
puberty, it weighs nearly 100 percent
of that of an adult
 Infancy (0-24 months)

• Physical growth is rapid during the

first 2 years. An infant's
birth weight generally doubles by 6
months and triples by the infant's
first birthday.

• A baby grows between 10 and 12 inches in length (or height)

• From 2 weeks to 2 months, rapid change takes place in all

sense, too. Clear vision increase to 12 feet during this period.
By 6 months of age, their vision is 20/20 which is normal.
 Infancy (0-24 months)
• Over time, infants learn to move their
body parts voluntarily to perform both
gross (large) and fine (small) motor skills.

• Gross motor skills are the ability to make movements

which use the large muscles in the arms, legs, and
torso.

• Fine motor refers to movements that require a high

degree of control and precision.
 Gross motor skill
Age Motor skills
0 month •Fetal posture
1 month •Chin up,
2 months •Chest up
3 months •Reach and miss, begin to hold their bodies in symmetry
4 months •Sit with support
6 months •Sit on lap, grasp object, sitting up with help or lying on their belly.
7 months •Sit on high chair, grasp dangling object; moving themselves in particular
direction.
8 months •Sit alone
9 months •Stand with help
10 months •Stand holding furniture
11 months •Creep
12 months •Walk when led
13 months •Pull to stand by furniture
14 months •Climb stair steps
15 months •Walk alone
 Fine motor skills
Age Skills
(months)
3 •Open hand prominently
•Babies begin holding objects between their palm and their enclosed fingers in
a clumsy ulna grasp.
3.5 •Grasps rattle
8.5 •Grasps with thumb and finger
•Most babies can pick up and drink from a cup.
11 •Holds crayon adaptively
•Can place smaller pellet-sized objects
14 •Builds tower of two cubes
16 •Places pegs in board
24 •Imitates strokes on paper
•Toddlers can use their hands with more dexterity as they can unwrap
birthday presents or do simple puzzles.
 Infancy (0-24 months)
• Robert Malina (1982) suggests that we divide
the wide range of motor skills into three
rough groups :
– locomotor patterns, such as walking, running,
jumping, hopping and skipping.
– Nonlocomotor patterns, such as pushing, pulling,
and bending.
– Manipulative skills, such as grasping, throwing,
catching, kicking, and other actions involving
receiving and moving objects.
Age in months Locomotor skills Nonlocomotor skills Manipulative skills

•1 • Stepping reflex •Lifts head slightly; follows •Holds object if placed in

slowly moving objects with hand.
eyes.
•2-3 •Lift head up to go degrees •Begins to swipe at objects
when lying on the stomach. in sight

•4-6
•Holds head erect in
• Rolls over; sit with
sitting. •Reaches for and grasps
some support; moves on
objects.
hands and knees
•7-9
•Transfers objects from one
• Sits without support;
hand to the other.
crawl
•10-12
•Squats and stoops
• Pulls himself/herself
•Some signs of hand
standing; walks grasping preference; grasps a spoon
•13-18 across palm but has poor aim
furniture; then walk of food to mouth.
without help •Stacks two blocks; puts
•Rolls ball to adult
objects into small containers
•Walks backward and and dumps them.
 Infancy (0-24 months)
• In these early months of life, babies seem pleased to
repeat their limited repertoire of motor skills again
and again.

• Such repeated patterns

become particularly prominent
at about 6 or 7 months of age.
These repeated movements do
not seem to be totally voluntary
or coordinated, but they also do
not appear to be random.
 Motor development
Children (age 3 to 12 years old)
• Although it seems motor
skills miraculously appear
and develop on their own,
the fact is, and children
who don’t receive
instruction and practice in
this area will develop only
marginal— as opposed to
maximal— ability to use
their bodies (Rae Pica,
2004).
 Age 3 and 4
 By the age of 3, children can
walk or run in a straight line and
leap off the ground with both
feet, although they can clear only
very small (8- to 10- inch) objects
in a single bound and cannot easily
turn or stop while running.
 Four-year-olds can skip, hop on
one foot, catch a large ball with
both hands, and run much farther
and faster than they could one
year earlier (Corbin, 1973).
 Age 5, 6 and 7
• By age 5, children becoming rather graceful;
like adults, they pump their arms when they
run, and their balance has improved to the
point that some of them can learn to ride a
bicycle.
• Despite (or perhaps because of) the rapid
progress they are making, young children
often overestimate the physical feats they
can perform, and the bolder ones may end up
with bruises, burns, cuts, scrapes, and an
assortment of other injuries (Plumert, 1995).
 Age 8 and 9
• By the age of 8 or 9, children can use
household tools like screwdrivers
pretty well. They have also become
skilled performers in video games
which require much of the eye-hand
coordination skills.
• Older children generally display
quicker reaction times compared to
younger children (Wilkinson & Allison,
1989), which helps to explain why they
usually beats their younger opponents
in action games such as table tennis
and badminton.
• With each passing year, school-age children
perform better.
• Children improve at these large-muscle
activities because they are growing larger and
stronger. At the meanwhile, they are also fine-
tuning their motor skills.
• Initially, children can only throw with their
arms whereas adolescents are able to
coordinate arm, shoulder and leg movements to
put the force of their bodies behind their
throws.
• That is why older children can throw farther
than younger children can not solely due to
their physical advantages, but they also use
more refined and efficient techniques of
movement (Galahue, 1989).
 Specific fine motor skills

• Visual Motor Skills -putting together

puzzles and building with construction
toys such as blocks and leggos.

• Grapho-Motor Skills -also visual motor

skills.
Children’s drawings
• has been widely studied, especially by
Rhonda Kellogg
• The first symbols-upright cross, the
diagonal cross, the rectangle, and other
common forms
• 3 years old-form face shapes
• At 4 to 5 years old-the child draws a
human form with arms and legs,
eventually the child adds a trunk and
clothes
• At age of 5-pictorials in their art, such
as houses, animals and boats
Contributing Factors:
• Attention skill
• Sensory integration

Sensory integration
• Touch
• Smell
• Taste
• Sight
• Hearing
• Position in Space
• Movement
 HANDEDNESS

Preference for using one hand rather than

another in performing a variety of motor
functions.
 Many children develop a preference for
use of the right hand as the left
hemisphere of the brain assumes
dominance and control over motor
functions.
 Handedness - 2
Handedness develops slowly
in children and is not always
consistent in the early years.
Before 2 years, most children
show considerable flexibility in
shifting from one hand to
another.
 Handedness – 3
By age 4, most children show a
preference for use of the right hand.
 Left-handed people are right-
hemisphere dominant: the side of the
brain that controls such skills as art,
drama, sculpture, and spatial relations.
It is most likely that handedness is
caused by a combination genetic,
prenatal, and learning factor.
 OBESITY IN CHILDHOOD
 Obesity can become a health problem as
children get older. Presents a future
health hazard.
 Due to several factors, including heredity.
Obese children tend to be born with more
and larger fat cells than slim children.
 Obesity - 2
 Another factor is eating habits. Obese
children do not necessarily eat more food,
but they prefer calorific foods high in fats,
starches, sugars.
 One major problem that contributes to
obesity is the habit of eating junk food-
potato chips, sweets, and sodas-which are
high in calories from fats and sugars, but
low in nutrition.
 Ctd…
 Activity level affects obesity. Obese children tend to be
less active, which reduces metabolism and the amount
of food burned up, thus increasing the fat accumulation.
 Parents must try to prevent it in the first place by
regulating the diet and eating habits of children while
they are young. They should serve nutritious foods, low
in calories from fat, starches, and sugars.
 Parents should not put their obese children on crash
diets. There are two ways to help children reduce their
weight:
 i) to help them change their eating habits.
 ii)to increase children’s physical activity so
they will use up more calories.
 MALNUTRITION AMONG
CHILDREN
• Inanition, or starvation, also called marasmus,
results from inadequate intake of all nutrients:
proteins, calories, vitamins, and minerals.
• Marasmic infants show gross weight loss,
growth retardation, and wasting of
subcutaneous fat and muscle.
• Vital organs lose weight and function. The
heart, liver, kidney, and intestines are affected.
Blood pressure drops. The endocrine system
is disturbed. Energy capacity is diminished
because of muscle destruction and anemia.
Hypothermia may contribute to death.
 Malnutrition
• Research reveals that an inadequate diet
prenatally and after birth may result in retarded
brain development and mental retardation.
• Kwashiorkor results when children have a
protein deficiency even though the calorie
intake is sufficient.
• Kwashiorkor is characterized by generalized
edema, flaky dermatosis, thinning and
decolouration of the hair, enlarged fatty liver, a
protruding belly due to the liver enlargement
and water retention, finally will retarded
growth.
 Importance of motor
development
• Development of gross and fine motor
skills can affect a child. These skills
help a child to perform better
academically and physically.
• Children acquire and develop
locomotor (traveling), nonlocomotor
(stationary), and manipulative
(object-control) skills they can use
for current and future physical
activity.
 The Theory of Critical Period
• This theory contends that nature provides
certain times when the child’s experience can
have the greatest impact on various aspects
of her development.
• For most basic motor skills, the critical
period — the time during which experience
can have the most influence — seems to
extend from the prenatal stage to about age
five (Rae Pica, 2004).
• The child will miss out on the opportunity to
achieve the best possible motor skill
development if they start off late as the
neurons will lose plasticity over time.
 Development over the years
Age Gross Motor Skills Acquired

3 Walk or run in a straight line and leap off ground with

both feet
4 Hop, skip on one foot, catch a big ball with both
hands
5 Pump their arms when they run, learn to ride a
bicycle
6 and Improve on the coordination of the whole body to
above stay balance in games and sports
 Development over the years
Age Fine Motor Skills Acquired

3 Eating clumsily

4 Copy simple designs, button shirt

5 Cut a straight line with scissors and copying

alphabets and numbers using crayon

8/9 Able to use household tools pretty well